As delegates from nearly 200 countries gathered for the recent international conference on climate change, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decried the “utterly inadequate” global response to the crisis so far. He warned that the “point of no return is no longer over the horizon” but that “It is in sight and hurtling toward us.” Nowhere are the consequences more visibly “hurtling,” and landing, than in Alaska. And in the northern state’s national parks and preserves, that means growing pressures on the very resources the National Park Service is charged with protecting.

Natural history and cultural heritages can't be constrained by political boundaries, which is one reason why it's good to see the United States and Russia working to forge ties through a “Shared Beringian Heritage Program." Through this program the proposed Beringia National Park in Chukotka would be linked with the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and Cape Krusenstern National Monument in Alaska.

In the coming year technicians will install an array of 17 remote automated stations in five national park areas in northern Alaska to help the National Park Service track climate trends.

Thanks to translocations that began 80 years ago, herds of prehistoric-looking muskoxen once again roam Alaska’s tundra. Could these shaggy Ice Age survivors be emergent stars of the watchable wildlife world?